The Maverick Preacher

by Victoria Bylin

  Had Joshua Blue betrayed Adie’s trust? She didn’t think so. The man could barely walk. It seemed more likely that Stephen had awoken early and Mr. Blue had lingered over the glass of milk. Whoever went for Stephen, probably Mary, had seen Adie’s empty bed. Maybe she’d heard the thump on the door and jumped to ominous conclusions.

  She ran up the back steps and flung open the door.

  “Adie!” The cry came from Pearl. “We thought—”

  “I know what you thought.” She dropped to her knees at the man’s side. “He’s hurt. We’ll have to call the doctor.”

  Stephen shrieked. He needed to be fed in the worst way, but Adie feared for the wounded man’s life.

  Groaning, he rolled to his back, revealing the bullet hole in his duster. When she opened his coat, she saw a red stain blooming on his white shirt. With each breath he took, the blood spread in a widening circle.

  Looking at her face, he mumbled something unintelligible.

  She hunched forward. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “I said…feed the baby.”

  Joshua Blue was lying on her floor with a bullet in his shoulder, bleeding inside and out, and he was thinking of her son. What kind of man put a baby before his own life? Using the hem of her nightgown, Adie wiped his brow. “Be still. We’ll get the doctor.”

  “No.” His voice sounded stronger. “No doctors.”

  “But you need help.”

  Someone lit a lamp. As it flared to life, Mary stepped closer. Adie smelled the residue of gunpowder and looked up. “Maybe Caroline can go for Doc Nichols.”

  The man lifted his head. “I said no.”

  His refusal made Adie wonder if he was on the run. It wouldn’t have surprised her. Everyone at Swan’s Nest had run from something, including herself.

  Mary scowled down at her. “Who is he?”

  “I rented him a room.”

  “But you don’t rent to men. You promised—”

  “This isn’t the time,” Adie said.

  She looked past Mary and saw Pearl at the stove. With her back to the rest of the kitchen, she lifted the bottle out of the pot of water and whisked Stephen into the front room where she could feed him in peace. Adie looked at Caroline. “Where’s Bessie?”

  “She went to get her nursing kit.”

  Mary finally lowered the gun. “Maybe she can take out the bullet.”

  Adie studied the man on her floor. His color had come back and his breathing seemed steady. Maybe they could avoid Dr. Nichols after all. Bessie hurried into the kitchen and dropped down next to Adie. She looked at the wound, checked the man’s back for an exit hole, then lowered him gently to the floor. “The bullet’s still in you, sir. It’ll have to come out.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “I can try,” Bessie said. “I’m a trained nurse, but it will hurt.”

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  Bessie looked at Adie. “Get that pint of whiskey.”

  Adie kept it with the smelling salts for medicinal purposes only. Before she could stand to fetch it, the stranger clutched her hand. “I don’t want it.”

  Why would he deny himself a painkiller? Adie was about to argue with him when Bessie interrupted. “It’s not for your belly, sir. It’s to clean the wound.”

  He relaxed but didn’t release Adie’s hand. She felt awkward comforting him, but they were both aware of the coming pain. When Adie didn’t move, Caroline went to the cupboard for the whiskey. She gave the bottle to Bessie, then lifted the instruments from the nursing bag, put them in the boiling water and set out clean rags for blotting the blood. Bessie had opened the two buttons on the man’s shirt, but it wouldn’t pull wide enough to reveal the wound. Using delicate scissors, the kind most women kept for embroidery, she cut the shirt and tugged it back from a small hole oozing blood.

  Adie’s stomach churned. The hole in Joshua Blue’s shoulder wasn’t much bigger than a man’s finger, but it had the potential to kill him with infection. In his weakened condition, he might not be able to fight it. Adie squeezed his hand. She feared for his health. She also feared for herself and Stephen. She’d just opened the first saddlebag when she heard the gunshot. Later, when he’d fallen asleep, she’d search his things.

  “Whiskey, please,” Bessie said matter-of-factly.

  Adie watched as Caroline splashed whiskey into her sister’s palm. As Bessie rubbed her hands together, Caroline dampened a patch of cotton and gave it to her sister. Bessie looked at the man’s face. “This is going to hurt, sir.”

  He closed his eyes. “Just do it.”

  Bessie took a probe from the instruments Caroline had put on a clean towel. As she inserted it into the wound, Joshua Blue arched up. Bessie pulled back.

  “Adie, Caroline. You’ll have to hold him down.”

  The two women moved into position. On their knees, they each held a shoulder. As Bessie went to work, Adie felt the man straining against her hands. She also sensed acceptance. The bullet had to come out.

  “I found it,” Bessie said.

  She removed the probe and lifted a pair of forceps. After a glance at her patient, she inserted the instrument, pinched the bullet and pulled it out. Joshua Blue groaned with pain. Adie wondered which hurt more, his chest or his belly.

  Bessie held the bullet up to the light and examined it. “It’s in one piece. We’re done except for stitching this gentleman up.”

  He let out a breath. “Thank you.”

  “You’ll do fine as long as the wound doesn’t fester. Of course you’ll have to rest up for a while.”

  He grunted. “How long?”

  Adie had been wondering the same thing.

  “As long as it takes.” Bessie took a stitch with a needle and black thread. “Judging by your appearance, you’re half starved. You need a week in bed and a month in a rocking chair.”

  Adie cringed. “That’s so long.”

  Bessie gave her a motherly look. “It’s what the man needs, honey. We’ll be all right.”

  Leave it to Bessie to calm the waters. Mary would pitch a fit. Pearl, conscious of her belly, would stop coming downstairs. Caroline judged no one. She’d befriend Mr. Blue without hesitation, posing a problem of a different kind. Adie watched as the nurse stitched up the wound, snipped the thread and wiped the incision with whiskey. She inspected her handiwork, then wiped the man’s brow with a clean rag. “We need to get you to bed. Can you walk?”

  “I think so.”

  With Adie on one side and Caroline on the other, he leveraged to his feet. He looked like a kicked-in chimney pipe, but he managed to move down the hall. Adie started to follow, but Bessie stopped her. “I’ll see to him. Go hold Stephen. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “Thanks, Bessie.”

  “By the way,” said the older woman. “Who is this man?”

  “I wish I knew.” Adie told her briefly about finding him on the porch. “He was in pain even before Mary shot him.”

  “Maybe an ulcer,” Bessie said. “I’ve got a small bottle of laudanum. I’ll fetch it for him.”

  Adie thought of his earlier comment about the drug but said nothing. She wanted Joshua Blue to fall asleep so she could finish going through his saddlebags, but first she needed to check her son.

  “Whatever you think,” she said to Bessie. “The sooner he heals, the sooner he can leave.”

  “He needs time,” the nurse said gently.

  Adie sighed. She’d cook meals for Joshua Blue and nurse his wounds. She’d change his sheets and wash his clothes. But time to heal—what he needed most—was the one thing she didn’t want to give. The sooner he left, the safer she and Stephen would be.

  As Bessie went down the hall, Adie headed for the parlor where she heard Pearl humming a lullaby to Stephen. She rounded the corner and saw both Pearl and Mary on the divan. Pearl looked lost, but Mary had crossed her arms and was glowering. Adie had hoped to check Stephen and escape to the carriage house, but she couldn’t leave without explain
ing to her friends.

  “Who is he?” Mary demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Adie said. “But I’m certain he means no harm.”

  Mary groaned. “You can’t possibly know that.”

  Adie couldn’t be sure, but he’d come to the door sick and weak. “Look at him. He’s downright scrawny.”

  “He’s also dressed like a gunfighter,” Mary insisted. “I know his kind.”

  Adie felt naive next to Mary, but she couldn’t stop worrying about the stranger. She didn’t want to argue, but she needed to set Mary straight. “He fainted on the porch. What else could I do? Leave him there?”

  “You could have gone for the sheriff.”

  To protect Stephen, Adie kept to herself as much as possible. If a Pinkerton’s detective visited Denver, he’d go straight to the law and make inquiries. The less the sheriff knew about Adie and her home, the safer her son would be. She gave Mary an impatient look. “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “You’re too trusting,” Mary insisted.

  Pearl sighed. “I wish you hadn’t shot him.”

  “He went for his gun!”

  Adie worried, but only for an instant. A man intending harm didn’t tell a woman to feed a hungry baby. “He has belly trouble,” she said to Mary. “He probably bent over in pain.”

  Recognition flitted across Mary’s face.

  Pearl went back to crooning to Stephen, who’d fallen peacefully asleep. Adie envied him. She wouldn’t sleep that well until Joshua Blue left Denver. “I have to see to his horse.”

  Mary pushed to her feet. “I’ll help.”

  “No.” Adie waved casually, but her stomach had jumped. She wanted to go through his things by herself. “It’s been a long night. You and Pearl should get some sleep.”

  “If you’re sure—”

  “I am.” Adie forced a smile. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  Before Mary could ask another question, Adie headed for the back door. As she turned the knob, Bessie came down the hall. “Mr. Blue wants to see you.”

  The saddlebags would have to wait but only for a bit. With rubbery knees, she thanked Bessie and went to see Joshua Blue.

  Chapter Three

  In spite of Josh’s protests, the woman nursing him had left a bottle of laudanum on the nightstand. He knew all about the drug and the lies it told. He’d first used it in Boston. With the renown that came with his sermons, he’d gotten an ulcer. The doctor he’d seen, a stranger because he’d wanted to hide his weakness, had given him something to calm his stomach, but it had led to embarrassing bouts of belching, something a man in Josh’s position couldn’t allow. He’d gone to a second physician, then a third. The last one had given him laudanum. It had helped immediately.

  Looking at the bottle, Josh knew it would help right now. If he filled the spoon the woman had left—he thought her name was Bessie—he’d be free of pain. He’d be numb to his guilt, too.

  The laudanum tempted him.

  The craving humbled him.

  Reverend Joshua Benjamin Blue, the best young preacher in Boston, maybe in America, had become addicted to opium. Thanks to Wes Daniels, the biggest sinner on earth and Josh’s only friend, he’d kicked the habit three months ago in a Kansas City boardinghouse.

  Thoughts of Wes made Josh smile. He hadn’t succeeded in saving the gunslinger’s soul, but neither had Wes corrupted him. They’d had some lively debates in the past few months…a few quarrels, too. Wes had understood Josh’s guilt, but he didn’t share his worry. As long as Emily had jewelry to sell, Wes insisted she’d be sitting pretty. Josh hoped so. For months he’d been visiting pawnbrokers in search of pieces he’d recognize. He knew from Sarah Banks, Emily’s best friend, that his sister had bought a train ticket to St. Louis. Sarah had given Josh a verbal beating, one he’d deserved.

  “How dare you cast stones at your sister! I know you, Josh. You’re as flawed as the rest us!”

  She’d been right, of course. With Sarah’s remarks in his ears, he’d traveled to St. Louis, where he’d spotted a familiar brooch in a jewelry store. Emily, he’d learned from the shopkeeper, had sold it and moved on. A clerk at the train station recalled her face and thought she’d gone to Kansas City. Josh’s only hope of finding her lay in a trail of pawned jewelry and the Lord’s mercy. If he could have moved, he’d have hit his knees. Like Paul, he counted himself among the foremost of sinners, a man sorely in need of God’s grace. With the laudanum calling to him, he needed that grace in abundance. It came in the tap of Adie Clarke’s footsteps.

  Bessie had left Josh a lamp, but she’d dimmed it to a haze that turned Miss Clarke into a shadow. Josh recalled her reddish hair and the glint in her gold-brown eyes. She’d struck him as young and pretty, though he wished he hadn’t noticed. He’d dedicated his life to serving God with every thought and deed. He wasn’t immune to pretty women, but he felt called to remain single. A man couldn’t travel at will with the obligation of a wife and family.

  Thoughts of children made him wince. Without Emily the family mansion in Boston had become a tomb. For the first time, Josh had taken his meals alone. Listening to the lonely scrape of his knife on fine china, he’d wondered how it would feel to share meals with a wife, maybe children. Tonight he’d envied the woman who’d fed the baby.

  Adie Clarke studied him in the dim light. “Are you awake?”

  “I am. I need something.”

  “Milk?”

  “No,” he said. “The laudanum…take it away.”

  Her gaze went to the bottle, then shifted to the cot where Josh lay wrapped in a blanket and wearing a silk nightshirt. Bessie had bandaged his shoulder, extracted the garment from one of the trunks in the storeroom and helped him into the shirt. Even in Boston, he hadn’t worn anything so fine.

  Miss Clarke stayed in the doorway. “Are you sure? Bessie says—”

  “Bessie doesn’t know me.”

  “She’s a good nurse.”

  “I don’t doubt it, Miss Clarke.” Josh felt ashamed, but the truth set a man free. “Until a few months ago, laudanum had a grip on me. I’ll never touch it again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t want her pity. “I’m over it.”

  “Of course.” She walked to the nightstand, lifted the bottle and hurried for the door.

  “Wait,” he called.

  She stopped and turned, but her eyes clouded with reluctance. “Do you need something else?”

  “Would you bring in my saddlebags?”

  She froze like a deer sensing a wolf. Why would she hesitate? Considering he’d been shot in her kitchen, fetching his saddlebags seemed like a small favor. He could live without the laudanum, but he desperately needed the Bible packed with his clothes. “I’d get them myself, but—”

  “No,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you.”

  As she headed down the hall, Josh rested his head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. He hoped she’d hurry. His shoulder ached and his belly burned, but his soul hurt most of all. He thought of David writing Psalms in the midst of battle and loss.

  Search me, O God, and know my heart… Love swelled in Josh’s chest. He prayed for Emily, the women of Swan’s Nest and the baby crying for milk.

  Try me and know my thoughts… If an ulcer, a gunshot wound and a craving for opium didn’t test a man, he didn’t know what did. Would ever find Emily? Was she still alive? And her child…He grimaced.

  See if there be any hurtful way in me… He prayed for purity of thought and a generous spirit.

  And lead me in Your way everlasting. Amen.

  As he finished the prayer, he looked expectantly at the door. Any minute Adie Clarke would be back with his Bible. More than ever, Josh needed the mercy of the God who’d walked the earth in a tent of human flesh. Jesus alone knew how he felt. He alone could bring comfort.

  Adie ran to the carriage house. If she hurried, she could look in the saddlebags before giving them to Mr. Blue
. On the other hand, she saw a risk. If she took too long, he’d wonder where she’d been. He also seemed more alert than she’d expected. If she rummaged through his bags, he might realize his things were in disarray and she’d have to explain herself.

  As she entered the outbuilding, she considered another approach. Mr. Blue wouldn’t be able to lift the heavy bags. He’d need her help. If she dumped the contents on the floor, she’d see everything and be able to gauge his expression. Adie didn’t like being sneaky, but her motives were pure. She’d do anything to protect Stephen.

  Not bothering with a lamp, she found the saddlebags where she’d left them, draped them over her shoulder, picked up the rifle and went back to the house. She went down the hall to Mr. Blue’s room where she leaned the gun by the door and set the bags against the wall. They’d be in his line of sight but not so close that he could see her expression.

  He pulled himself upright so he could watch. “I’m not sure which bag it’s in.”

  Adie didn’t ask him what he wanted. The less information she had, the more reason she had to riffle through his things. She lifted the first bag, worked the buckle and dumped the contents on the floor. Pots, two plates and utensils clattered against each other, and a can of beans rolled away. She’d found his mess kit but nothing of interest. She put everything back, then unbuckled the second bag. She could tell from the softness that it held clothing. Before he could stop her, she removed trousers, a shirt and a frock coat, all tightly rolled and as black as coal.

  “Keep going,” he said. “What I want is at the bottom.”

  Adie removed dungarees, a denim shirt and two pairs of store-bought socks. She checked the edges for darning, found none and decided Joshua Blue was a single man and always had been. Wanting a reason to check his pockets, she picked up the clothing and stood. “I’ll hang up your things.”

  “I’d be obliged.”

  Feeling like a fox in a henhouse, she went to a row of nails on the back wall. She turned her back, gave the coat a shake and searched the pockets. She felt a few coins, lint and a scrap of paper. A quick glance revealed notes about a man named Peter and something about catching fish. Seeing no mention of Maggie, Adie slipped the paper back in the coat and lifted a pair of trousers. She repeated her search and found nothing.